“My name is CeeLo Green and I got the blues, cause nobody loves me no more,” CeeLo wails on his new album, Heart Blanche. Released on Fri. Nov. 6, this is his first solo album since 2010 (not including his 2012 Christmas album, CeeLo’s Magic Moment). Heart Blanche is CeeLo’s sappy, sloppy love letter to himself.

CeeLo is the central character in every song, and he wallows in self-pity. In each song on Heart Blanche, he attempts to take on vast themes of human suffering and lost love. Lacking a tight focus, songs blend together in a stream of synths and crackly riffs. CeeLo was once a flamboyant artist whose brand relied on his carefree, upbeat vibes. Now that he’s attempting to cross over into serious content, the magic of CeeLo is lost.

In the song “CeeLo Green Sings the Blues,” he begins with some “oooing” over a 1970s organ synth. Then he bellows, “I’m tired, so tired” and “I tried, I tried.” As some mournful maracas come in, CeeLo sings that people like him “maybe just a little bit more than you used to yesterday / But not like you loved me before.” It’s difficult to like a song when the artist is singing about being unloved. Even listeners who know nothing about the singer’s past have to wonder what he’s done to be so hated. (Turns out, CeeLo committed sexual assault, tweeted about it to defend himself, and then refused to apologize to his victim.)

From listening to his lyrics, it becomes clear that CeeLo doesn’t feel bad for his truly reprehensible behavior. He just feels bad for himself because now no one likes him. Heart Blanche is heavy-handed and emotionally taxing.

The song “Robin Williams” takes on the pain of losing beloved heroes, with lyrics that mourn the loss of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Pryor, and John Belushi. CeeLo sings, “I’m afraid of not being able to laugh anymore” and “What’s life going to be when we don’t have any more heroes.” CeeLo brings up a list of fallen heroes—interestingly, all white male comedians—in order to align himself with them and provoke sympathy for himself. He is trying to make audiences think about what the world would be without the hero CeeLo. He discusses his own goodness in “Purple Heart (Soldier of Love)” and “Better Late Than Never.”

Turns out, CeeLo is delusional not only about his own heroism but also about his process of growing older. In “Racing Against Time,” he confidently sings, “I will always be young.” He is 41. Not old, but also not young. He’s out of touch.

Even though this is CeeLo’s first new album since Lady Killer in 2010, Heart Blanche shows no signs that he’s made artistic progress in the past five years. He has even regressed. Lady Killer contains bangers like “Bright Lights Bigger City,” and “F*** You.” These tight songs make use of diverse lyrical themes. No riff is wasted, and the beats drive CeeLo’s voice forward energetically.

This new album makes me want to eat some chocolates and recline on a comfy couch—and it’s easy to imagine CeeLo doing just that when he wrote the album. The whole thing is elegiac, mourning a washed-out self.

Maybe I’m so disappointed in this album because, against my better judgment, I had high hopes for CeeLo’s comeback. In my heart I knew that CeeLo was washed out and has been ever since he started judging “The Voice” in 2011 (and had multiple diva meltdowns on the show). I knew that he’s gotten in trouble with the law and has behaved in ways that I find abhorrent. But I held out hope that he would pull through, make good music, even repent. I sincerely though he would do better because, in spite of his flaws, CeeLo Green was once very important to me.

In high school, I drove a station wagon with a CD drive and no aux cord. For two years, I had only one CD: Lady Killer by CeeLo Green. It played every morning for the 7-minute ride to Evanston Township High School, then again on the way home in the late afternoon. No matter who was in the car (usually my amused sister), we listened to CeeLo. Driving to weekly flute lessons, the ACT, my summer job, graduation, CeeLo was right there with me. Streaming the massive, flamboyant CeeLo through tiny speakers made everything seem manageable back then. CeeLo’s voice was consoling and constant.

When I got into college senior year, my sister made me a giant poster with “She’s fun, she’s fearless. She’s a friend of mine” emblazoned across it—a line from the song “I Want You” on Lady Killer. My sister sent me off to college with the reminder of what rooted us at home.

CeeLo asks, in the endlessly indulgent “CeeLo Green Sings the Blues” on Heart Blanche, whether “The world would be better off without me.” It pains me to say it, but, at least while CeeLo is translating his immoral private behavior into saccharine, self-pitying albums, the music world would be fine going forward without CeeLo’s music. I will always love what he once represented for me, but I can’t love CeeLo any more.

Guy Fieri (DC ‘81) has decided to pause his well-publicized beef with renowned television chef Anthony Bourdain to cook up some snacks at Harvard-Yale this weekend. “My rivalry with Bourdain can wait. These hungry Bulldogs… they need me,” he announced before disappearing into a cloud of Cheeto dust.

Fieri reportedly bought a sweatband that says “Huck Farvard” and dyed some lobster rolls  a nasty shade of “Yale Blue.” His pop-up restaurant outside the Yale Bowl will serve carrot sticks, Dr. Pibb, and chives starting at 8 AM on Game Day.

The renowned restauranteur was last spotted in the Dport computer lab prepping for Friday Night’s YCC DJ battle and re-frosting his tips.

By giving Donald Trump a platform for his antics last weekend, Saturday Night Live not only exonerated him but also demonstrated a lack of integrity. In order to better understand how egregious SNL’s decision to feature Trump was, both for political and comedic reasons, it may be helpful to compare Trump to another darling of the media who peaked last month: Pizza Rat.

Pizza Rat is the subject of the 14-second viral YouTube clip “New York City Rat Taking Pizza Home on the Subway.” In the clip, a rat tries to drag a slice of cheese pizza down a flight of stairs. Donald Trump on SNL and Pizza Rat are both rooted in an inherently outrageous premise that goes nowhere and says nothing new. Just as a rat scampering down stairs with pizza on its back will intrigue people, this unfiltered Republican on SNL is likewise going to draw viewers. Each premise unfolds as you’d expect. The rat scampers, the Trump pouts. Viewers are sucked into both, although neither offers sharp humor. The difference is that Trump’s airtime is massively, dangerously consequential while Pizza Rat’s could hardly matter less. SNL, overlooking his abominable views, gives Trump a space to look endearing in front of a rapt audience of millions. Trump dances to Drake, he smiles, he gets treated like an innocent figure. More than funny, he’s even made to look fun.

Trump and Pizza Rat also both make for better TV when imitated. Some pranksters last week built a “robot Pizza Rat” to scare unsuspecting New Yorkers, according to a video produced by New York Magazine. In the video, a little mechanical rat with a slice of pizza on its back zooms around New York while people scream and leap out of its path. This robot had the same impact as the original Pizza Rat, only it touched more people and made for an even funnier, longer bit. Next to this robot rat, the original Pizza Rat looks like a one-trick pony. (Rat, rather, but you get what I mean.)

Trump, likewise, makes for better satire when imitated by his capable impersonators on SNL. In his opening monologue, when Donald Trump stands onstage alongside two Trump imitators (SNL cast members Taran Killam and Darryl Hammond), Trump is out-Trumped. On one side, Killam contorts his face into a deep frown. On the other side, Hammond gesticulates and goes “a bum bum bum.” The two impersonators wiggle in identical suits and Donald Trump, standing between them, feels redundant.

Trump’s real life actions, while scary, can provide fodder for good comedy. The mismatch between his actions and general standards of appropriate behavior is what makes him outrageous at debates. But it’s not funny when he’s in on the joke.

In his opening monologue, Trump barely even tells jokes. He delivers lines about his feud with Rosie O’Donnell that we’ve been sick of hearing about since 2006. Then he talks about being rich, which is not something he wouldn’t openly say in real life. Larry David (who has just finished playing a spot-on Bernie Sanders in the opening sketch) heckles Trump from the sidelines. David calls Trump a racist in a scripted interjection. This is the only real commentary, and also the most pressing truth in the set. Trump laughs it off, and David holds back laughter, too. I wasn’t laughing.

SNL nails political commentary when it is calling out candidates for things they wouldn’t admit about themselves. This goes both for liberals and conservatives. The genius of Tina Fey’s legendary Palin, for example, is that it highlighted aspects of Palin that she herself wanted to keep under wraps. And in the Larry David as Bernie Sanders bit last Saturday, Sanders’ disconnect with black voters is called out. A joke about Sanders choosing to kayak across rivers instead of driving on the bridges of the capitalistic infrastructure shines a light on Sanders’ eccentric brand of liberalism. These cut to the cores that other candidates try to cover up. But, with Trump, we see that it’s tough to satirize someone who is shameless.

The whole episode is a safe approach to a politician that is anything but safe. Using worn-out jokes, easy parody premises, and clips from “Hotline Bling,” the show treats Trump like any other host. But Trump is not any other host, and to treat him as such reveals a lack of conscience and creative energy on the part of SNL. This episode makes Trump look good. The cast pokes fun at his quirks instead of looking at any of the very real and threatening issues he represents.

People watch SNL, and its content sways public opinion. But, with this episode, the show proves it is apathetic toward the damage it is causing. Unlike Pizza Rat, which can scamper back into its creepy damp little Subway home, Trump is live beyond Saturday Night. And that is not funny.

The new Frank Stella retrospective at the Whitney is way, way too much: too many pieces, too many bright colors, and too many words of wall text to explain each new material. That is both its downfall and what makes it fun. With 120 works jammed into an 18,000-foot gallery (an entire floor of the Whitney’s new building), the exhibition unapologetically maximizes the space it occupies. Curated with the participation of the artist himself, the show succeeds in tracking Stella’s development from calculating college senior to expressive modernist. Where it falls short, though, is in its overcrowding. There is barely room to breathe, much less engage with pieces on any meaningful level, between the endless parade of sculptures and massive paintings.

A 40-foot mural, entitled “Das Eirbeden in Chili,” greets patrons as they stream out of the elevator. This colorful 1999 baroque-inspired painting that Stella describes as “maximalist” stands in stark contrast beside a more ordered work from early in his career. This dialectic between early order and later exploratory chaos bookends the exhibition’s thematic narrative.

From here, the exhibit proceeds chronologically, with a focus on Stella’s processes in the first few rooms. The story starts with “Die Fahne Hoc!” and other minimalist black paintings. This is an intentional scaling back after the overstated mural in the first room. Stella’s black pieces are designed with mathematical precision. Every pinstripe and angle against a black background is planned. In this first room, the wall text, without prescribing a reading, offers insight into the methods Stella used to craft these works. It is grounding to hear quotes from the artist himself about how he crafted these first black pieces, and it enhances the experience to see his early sketches presented in frames alongside the corresponding finished products.

However, this focus on process drops off after the second room, to the exhibit’s detriment. It would have been helpful if this thread had continued as the exhibit moved into his later pieces, which are more visually and structurally complex.

While the wall text moves away from a focus on process, it continues to play a prominent role in the next rooms of the exhibition. Almost every paragraph of wall text begins with a quotation from Stella before a paragraph written by the voice of an anonymous curator. Stella is thoughtful, and often academic, in his consideration of his own works. Forged in the hallowed halls of Andover and Princeton, Stella’s concepts reference Moby Dick, medieval manuscripts, geometric tools, and architecture.

These pieces of wall text also demonstrate a downside to Stella’s active participation in the exhibit—the tone of the labels is overly flattering at times. It’s not that Stella isn’t deserving of praise for being a revolutionary artist, but it’s hard not to wonder what the wall text would have said had it not been written knowing it would be seen by the artist. The wall text’s presentation of his role as a maverick feels forced: emphasizing that “Stella’s refusal to settle into a signature style has made him an anomaly,” and that “Stella has always been willing to explore or invent new techniques.” The paragraphs sound like they are pushing the artist’s own agenda.

There are also parts of the exhibition where Stella’s influence plays out more subtly and successfully—the physical gallery space is designed according to principles Stella emphasizes in his work. In thinking about his art, Stella expresses his desire that, “the boundaries be felt in the right way—they are defining, but not limiting.” So the exhibition space is cleverly organized to avoid total borders between rooms and phases. Inside the exhibit, temporary white dividers help break up the space without creating hermetic seals between sections. The only true walls are the four outer walls of the large exhibition space.

The lack of borders is all the more apparent, because of the drastic changes within the space: after the stark black paintings of the first section, the exhibit becomes a carnival. Electrifying colors cascade over visitors as they maneuver around three-dimensional pieces. Room after room is packed with massive objects that could each take up a room on their own. “Zeltweg,” a 1982 mixed media piece, evokes a racecar track: jutting out from the wall, overlaid magnesium ribbons form a towering tangle. The placement of an object this bright and visually taxing right next to other objects of equal intensity makes it difficult to walk through the exhibit without getting a headache. In attempting to look at an object from a side angle, viewers run the risk of bumping into the piece jutting out next to it. While all of these works are compelling on their own, putting them right next to each other makes the experience of looking at them draining.

So the room overlooking the Hudson offers a much-needed chance to breathe.  A vast glass window greets you as you enter a room full of blond wood and metal. After several rooms of glitter and neon shades, this room provides the respite it wasn’t clear was necessary until it presented itself.

This room’s centerpiece is “The Raft of the Medusa,” inspired in part by Gericault’s painting by the same name. It is composed of found objects cast in melted aluminum. Boldly colorless, its edges fray and wrap around it. It towers over visitors. If seen from the right angle, it melds into the water of the Hudson through the window right behind it. This object is so attractive partly because there aren’t equally towering objects right next to it.

Sitting alongside this piece is a collection of objects more manageable in scale. This 16-piece series of works entitled the “Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich” pays homage to Malevich and Calder, two earlier revolutionary expressionists. It comprises several wooden tables with clean square tops—a reference to Malevich’s squares. Atop the tables rest several metallic creatures whose thin metal tubes are reminiscent of Calder’s mobiles. I heard another viewer laugh and say that it’s tempting to pick one of these pieces up in his pocket and carry it away. That idea stems from the radically manageable scale of these pieces. Unlike the enormous works that have dominated so far, these objects are attractive in their smallness. It’s refreshing to look closely at an object smaller than my body after feeling dwarfed in comparison to all the big things.

“The Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich” signals a transition into the final sections of the exhibit, which depict Stella as an artist ready to explore expressive gesture. This is a definitive departure from his cleanly organized first works. So the next room is crowded with more large-scale colorful pieces. In his 2009 work “K.81 Combo (K.37 and K.43) large size,” Stella plays at the juncture between music and art. He wraps pieces of brightly painted metal around each other to form an unwieldy ball that stands on four legs of stainless steel tubing. With this piece, Stella goes one step beyond the compelling but established dialogue between visual and auditory. He adds a temporal dimension to this discussion, intending for viewers to spend time walking around his piece.

Lingering here, I try to block out the rest of the neon bright and assertively dimensional pieces sharing the space. It’s more difficult than it should be. As a space to deeply encounter objects, this exhibition is not ideal. It’s too much of a lively bazaar to allow for contemplation. But as a space to become re-enchanted with the playful capacity of visual spaces, this exhibition nails it.

Juicy Couture calls this one “house of juicy”

i don;t want to wear this hell no

hm

creepy

*screams*

(image credit: juicycoutoureoutlineonline-inc.com)

(photo: dreamstime.com)

it’s fall break. time to kick back, leave town, and maintain the high levels of social stress that plague you every second of every day at yale?! wait a second: no! start following your bliss. travel alone.

i know, i know. you’ve got some questions: are you sure that’s fun? is it safe? are you sure I’m interesting enough that I won’t get bored of my droning internal dialogue after several straight days alone with no other human contact?? what if I die? the answer to all these questions is a resounding YES. solo travel is fun! don’t believe me? read this.

13 REASONS SOLO TRAVEL ROCKS:

1. lots of time to reflect

2. no need to follow any else’s agenda besides exactly your own at literally every second

3. no compromising. at all.

4. get double (triple, quadruple, etc.) the attention from waiters than if you were with friends

5. no one laughs when you get lost

6. no one wags their finger when you eat dessert first

7. no one holds you when you cry at night

8. you don’t have to shower even once for the entire duration of your trip

9. every piece of art you see is speaking to you

10. every street sign was written for you

11. the birds–they sing for you

12. you don’t have to let anyone else be in your caricature

13. selfies

Credit: Philadelphia

The city that never sleeps! Is only an hourlong Metro North ride from this city of brotherly love and the squishiest pretzels ever. Home of Penn (where my good friend Anna goes!), the Liberty Bell, and the scene from Rocky with the theme song that I sometimes work out to (humble brag: I jog). Philadelphia has gotten more foody in recent years, and I hear that many restaurants are BYOB due to unusual liquor laws. The pope went there just this week!

I certainly don’t mind Philadelphia. So I never complain more than usual when I find myself there, which is usually once every couple years. Always Sunny is chill, the Wawa is fine, and the Barnes Collection is definitely on par with other East Coast big city museums. Philly keeps up!

D: The Pope

Pope Francis. Papa Francisco. Birth name: Jorge. Nickname: Frisco. Outfits: relentlessly sick. Erstwhile nightclub bouncer, liberator of the poor, unapologetic wearer of white after Labor Day, this Pope is p cool as far as popes go.

Living in the Vatican must be a lot, so it’s real impressive that this man is simultaneously able to make John Boehner cry AND get liberals to hail him as the hottest young thang since Kid President. The Michael Jordan of the Eucharist, the Bernie Sanders of making mischief, the Friedrich Nietzsche of kissing babies, he does it all and without breaking a sweat under his funky little pope hat.

All things considered, this Pope would get top marks– if not for allegations of a secret meeting with turtleneck-wearing homophobe Kim Davis. Very not chill, and very off-brand.

That said, I have no say in who gets to be the Pope, as I am neither Catholic nor a celibate male. So, for now, I will stay out of it. Team Frank?

Fail: Sin

Okay, this one I’m absolutely certain about. Sin is whack. Some sins are kind of okay. Gluttony? Don’t mind it. Sloth? On weekends. But many sins are just like NO. Being “a deceitful witness that uttereth lies”? No way. Killing? Is bad!

Ever since yon ancient times of Christian living, sin has been the number one no-no of all reverent peeps. Which is understandable, since it is also the name of the world’s number one jankiest wave function.

I’ve never grasped the concept of Sin as fully as some, because I’m an atheist and also “don’t apply myself” in math. But people get pretty worked up about this little three-letter word. Pope Francis, according to my Googling, is wholeheartedly against sin. My trig teacher, Mr. Draganski, was wholeheartedly in favor of wearing a Hawaiian shirt every day to school. Even in the cold of the Illinois winter! You do the math(!) Amazing. Anyway, sin gets a failing grade! I am against it. Down with sin, God bless the Pope, and God bless the U.S. of A!

everyone is all worked up about Hillary’s private email server. but her fundraising emails reveal some far more sinister truths about her campaign//lifestyle. i will expose her. so now without further ado i present u real screenshots live from my inbox:

10 THINGS HILLARY CLINTON IS ACTUALLY UP TO (according to her fundraising emails)

1) she is about to be audited

2) She is a zygote

3) or perhaps a high-powered coke dealer

4) Desperate grad student you met at a bar…

Then again a few hours later after u didn’t respond to the first email, again with:

5) folksy grandfather vibes

6) Hillz is a fake id dealer in China. ur not ever seeing that id

7) she is a saucy 12-year old who is like “sry bout it”

8) she’s social climber realllllly trying to make this party happen

9) well-meaning froco

10) And, finally, Hil reveals herself to rly be one of those mass email hack scammers pretending to be trapped in Kenya requesting money via Western Union NOW

honestly maybe i’m just salty because she has a hotter social media following than me. maybe i’m jealous of how spontaneously she pulls off emails with no capital letters and poor punctuation.  hillz is calling out for help. and i’m just like

sry